One-question interview on Online Teaching Techniques

António Dias de Figueiredo

Dear Mónica,

My reply to your 'interview'.

An online teacher has the possibility to choose between a set of teaching techniques, for e.g. One-alone Techniques, One-to-one Techniques, One-to-many Techniques and Many-to-many Techniques, as mentioned in The Online Report on Pedagogical Techniques for Computer-Mediated Communication, written by Morten Flate Paulsen.

Do you know other that I have not mentioned here?

As a contextualist in my visions about learning and teaching (Figueiredo & Afonso, 2006), I confess I do not feel at ease with strict classifications of both learning and teaching. Of course, classifications are useful to facilitate the initial structuring of our thoughts and the framing of our debate with other people, but I do not find it useful to try to explore them to the minute detail. In issues as complex as teaching and learning, I tend to favour the views of Mol and Law (2002), who prefer to resort to open lists, cases and walks where traditional approaches would choose classificatory systems, examples and maps.

In your opinion is there a perfect teaching technique?

No. There is no perfect teaching technique. Teaching is just a means to achieve an end, which is learning, and no means can be judged independently from the ends in view. The measure of the adequacy of a teaching technique is, thus, the degree of its success in promoting the desired learning. Learning, in turn, depends on the personal characteristics of the learner (or learners), on what is to be learned, and on the context (or ecosystem) where the learning takes place. No Swiss army knife technique exists to cover all the possible combinations of that challenge. In fact, the learning requirements of different learners are often, not just different, but contradictory.

Or is the joint use of some of them that is going to enhance education?

I would not use the expression ‘joint use’, but rather ‘organic combination’, assuming a mutual interpenetration between the techniques and room for creativity in putting that combination to practice. Teaching techniques should not be seen as mechanical intermediaries in the learning process, but rather as mediators, which transform, translate, and modify (Latour, 2005, 39). This means that the combination of two or more techniques can be much more than the sum of the techniques.

To what extent do you consider that the quality of an online course depends on the teaching technique that is used by the e-teacher?

The quality of an online course depends on an array of many factors, including the teaching techniques. It should be stressed, however, that online courses are not the mere transposition of traditional face-to-face courses to the online medium. In this sense, it is not correct to talk about “the teaching technique used by the e-teacher”. In many online courses the teaching techniques are established for specific learners, for specific topics, or for specific courses. They are established by a design team and conceived for the whole ecosystem of the course, and they are not handled solely by the e-teacher. In fact, in many online courses there is no such figure as the e-teacher.

References

Figueiredo, A. D., & Afonso, A. P. (2006). Context and Learning: A Philosophical Framework. In A. D. Figueiredo and A. P. Afonso (Eds.), Managing Learning in Virtual Settings: the Role of Context, pp. 1-22. Hershey, PA, USA: Information Science Publishing.

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford University Press, USA.

Mol, A., & Law, J. (2002). Complexities: An Introduction. In Law, J. & Mol, A. (Eds.). Complexities: Social Studies of Knowledge Practices. Duke University Press.

Best wishes for your course.

Regards

António Dias de Figueiredo